On Mon, 2024-11-25 at 15:53 -0800, Luis Chamberlain wrote:
On Tue, Nov 19, 2024 at 11:49:14AM +0100, Roberto Sassu wrote:
From: Roberto Sassu roberto.sassu@huawei.com Introduce load_parser() to load a kernel module containing a parser for the requested digest list format (compressed kernel modules are supported). Kernel modules are searched in the /lib/modules/<kernel ver>/security/integrity/digest_cache directory.
load_parser() calls ksys_finit_module() to load a kernel module directly from the kernel. request_module() cannot be used at this point, since the reference digests of modprobe and the linked libraries (required for IMA appraisal) might not be yet available, resulting in modprobe execution being denied.
You are doing a full solution implementation of loading modules in-kernel. Appraisals of modules is just part of the boot process, some module loading may need firmware to loading to get some functinality to work for example some firmware to get a network device up or a GPU driver. So module loading alone is not the only thing which may require IMA appraisal, and this solution only addresses modules. There are other things which may be needed other than firmware, eBPF programs are another example.
Firmware, eBPF programs and so on are supposed to be verified with digest lists (or alternative methods, such as file signatures), once the required digest list parsers are loaded.
The parser is an exceptional case, because user space cannot be executed at this point. Once the parsers are loaded, verification of everything else proceeds as normal. Fortunately, in most cases kernel modules are signed, so digest lists are not required to verify them.
It sounds more like you want to provide or extend LSM hooks fit your architecture and make kernel_read_file() LSM hooks optionally use it to fit this model.
As far as the LSM infrastructure is concerned, I'm not adding new LSM hooks, nor extending/modifying the existing ones. The operations the Integrity Digest Cache is doing match the usage expectation by LSM (net denying access, as discussed with Paul Moore).
The Integrity Digest Cache is supposed to be used as a supporting tool for other LSMs to do regular access control based on file data and metadata integrity. In doing that, it still needs the LSM infrastructure to notify about filesystem changes, and to store additional information in the inode and file descriptor security blobs.
The kernel_post_read_file LSM hook should be implemented by another LSM to verify the integrity of a digest list, when the Integrity Digest Cache calls kernel_read_file() to read that digest list. That LSM is also responsible to provide the result of the integrity verification to the Integrity Digest Cache, so that the latter can give this information back to whoever wants to do a digest lookup from that digest list and also wants to know whether or not the digest list was authentic.
Because this is just for a *phase* in boot, which you've caught because a catch-22 situaton, where you didn't have your parsers loaded. Which is just a reflection that you hit that snag. It doesn't prove all snags will be caught yet.
Yes, that didn't happen earlier, since all the parsers were compiled built-in in the kernel. The Integrity Digest Cache already has a deadlock avoidance mechanism for digest lists.
Supporting kernel modules opened the road for new deadlocks, since one can ask a digest list to verify a kernel module, but that digest list requires the same kernel module. That is why the in-kernel mechanism is 100% reliable, because the Integrity Digest Cache marks the file descriptors it opens, and can recognize them, when those file descriptors are passed back to it by other LSMs (e.g. through the kernel_post_read_file LSM hook).
And you only want to rely on this .. in-kernel loading solution only early on boot, is there a way to change this over to enable regular operation later?
User space can voluntarily load new digest list parsers, but the Integrity Digest Cache cannot rely on it to be done. Also, using request_module() does not seem a good idea, since it wouldn't allow the Integrity Digest Cache to mark the file descriptor of kernel modules, and thus the Integrity Digest Cache could not determine whether or not a deadlock is happening.
Thanks
Roberto